`Masood created one medical seat as a very special case`

Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood had created one special medical seat for Tripura "as a very special case as a one-time concession" and later nominated an underserving candidate on it, noted a Delhi court which on Tuesday sentenced the Congress leader to four-year imprisonment.

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood had created one special medical seat for Tripura "as a very special case as a one-time concession" and later nominated an underserving candidate on it, noted a Delhi court which on Tuesday sentenced the Congress leader to four-year imprisonment.

Special CBI judge JPS Malik noted that Masood had called the file concerned to his office in September 1990 and as per a note therein, one more seat of MBBS was allocated to Tripura "as a very special case as a one-tme concession".

The seat was then allotted to one Sachidanand Dwivedi, son of a Lucknow-based journalist. Sachidanand was also sentenced to one-year jail term today but given bail.

Observing that there was a conspiracy going on, the judge noted "there can be no special case for one-time concession if the seat in question was never to be allocated to a candidate from Tripura.

"Since the conspiracies are hatched in secrecy, there can be no better evidence of linkage of Rasheed Masood with co-accused Gurdial Singh and Sachidanand Dwivedi in the circumstance of the case", it said.

The court said, "it is a simple case of creating one seat by Rasheed Masood, making nomination to the seat by other accused Gurdial Singh and taking advantage of the seat allocated in the name of government of Tripura by third accused Sachidanand."

The court held Masood and other accused were pursuing a "common object".

The judge has also said in his over 80-page judgement that Dwivedi was well aware of the fact that he was not eligible for being nominated to the MBBS seat as a nominee of of Tripura.

The court also rejected Masood`s submission that he did not share cordial relations with his brother and therefore could not have nominated his nephew.

The court said even as Masood claims he did not share cordial relations, the documents prove to the contrary. It noted that Masood`s nephew had been nominated by Masood for the medical seat.